Another year of economic stagnation. That is the gloomy picture that TIME'S
European Board of Economists sees for 1981. As nations struggle to absorb
rapid-fire energy price shocks from the Middle East, unemployment in Europe
will climb and torrid inflation will cool only slightly. To rein in rising prices,
governments have resorted to traditional tactics, in particular sharply
slowing the growth of their money supplies. The result is, however, an
international war of high interest rates that threatens to deepen and
prolong the economic...